Lets face it, Gigabyte's 3D1 was an innovative even if problematic card. It was Gigabye making its mark as an innovator and not just another mainstream manufacturer.It was also a gauntlet to its competitors, and so it's not surprising that we saw not one, but four dual-GPU graphics cards at Computex this year.First and foremost was an updated version of Gigabyte's 3D1, featuring two 6800GTs and 512M of DDR3. Leadtek was also playing the game, presenting a dual 6600GT with 256MB with its WinFast Duo PX 6600GT Extreme.Not to be outdone, ASUS proved it can make the biggest, if not fastest, dual-GPU card with the EN6800Ultra, utilising dual 6800 Ultras with a total 512M DDR3. And 2 slots. It's a beast of a card, with a single large blue-led fan centered on a sleek aluminium covered heatsink.But if Atomic were giving a 'dual-GPU card of doom' award out, it would have to go to MSI's offering -- the nx6800ultra. Check it: Two 6800 Ultras, 1GB DDR3, in a single slot design. Further, the whole baby is cooled with a dual copper heatsinks on front and back, replete with heat pipes. Stop your panting, for there is more: unlike the Gigabyte and ASUS offerings, the SLI connector is retained. Yes, imagine two of these beasties dancing with four-GPU orgasmic abandon in your PC.Wait, just give me a moment.Ah, better. Ok, obviously this would be dependent on drivers, but the mere concept is sure to drive some crazy people to make it happen.
Sex made silicon.
G70
You've heard of it already, and we're here to confirm it -- NVIDIA's next-gen GPU is called the G70 and... well, that's about all we can say as we're under NDA. However If we were to use a chocoholics analogy to convey its stats, the G70 would have to be a massive tub of the world's best chocolate ice cream filled with chocolate chips and covered with a chocolate coated chocolate sauce, dipped into a vat of chocolate. And a cherry on top.Yeah, that good. As we speak there is a G70 with our name on it coming to our Labs, so watch this space.
Sound of silence
Emphasising the push for quiter PCs, ASUS' demonstrated their new nForce4 based A8N SLI Premium motherboard sporting something we haven't really seen before -- a heatsink and heatpipe combination built into the motherboard for Northbridge cooling. We can't wait to test this baby to see how effective it is. Other stats include: Socket 939 with support for AMD dual-core X2 processors, four SATA II RAID ports, and dual Gigabit LAN.
Fanless Design, people.
Caught in the crossfire
When NVIDIA launched its SLI volley into the world, ATI couldn't help but respond in kind. And now it's here -- Crossfire is ATI's dual-GPU solution and works a little differently to NVIDIA's design. ATI claim better speeds, naturally, but the proof will be in the pudding when we get our sweaty palms on it. Two standout facets of its design however are that the second card needs to be a special 'Crossfire enabled' card, and not just a duplicate, and that -- according to ATI -- it works with all games, and not just those for which a profile has been specified as with NVIDIA's offering.Without a doubt the SLI wars have just started, and the competition between NVIDIA and ATI competing in this space can only be a good thing for the end user. Look out for Atomic's take on these two technologies in the near future.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012